{"id":330371,"date":"2020-09-24T06:00:36","date_gmt":"2020-09-23T20:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=330371"},"modified":"2020-09-24T06:00:36","modified_gmt":"2020-09-23T20:00:36","slug":"t-o-a-s-t-tinian-old-age-sonnet-tales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/t-o-a-s-t-tinian-old-age-sonnet-tales\/","title":{"rendered":"T.O.A.S.T. Tinian Old Age Sonnet Tales"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>SONNET SELFIE ON TURNING 71<\/strong><br \/>\n(I was born September 14, 1949 in Elmira, New York)<\/p>\n<p>I haven\u2019t celebrated my birthday much since I turned old enough<br \/>\n to vote and drink, which was 18 in New York State at the time.<br \/>\nI told my students to honor their mothers on their own birthday.<br \/>\nMothers did all the work and carried them inside for nine months.<br \/>\nHere is an abcedarian sonnet of what I\u2019ve become at 71, Enjoy:<\/p>\n<p>AT 71 my ass is dragging, my BODY sagging<br \/>\nmy CHIN doubled, my DOCTORS troubled<br \/>\nENERGETIC yawns, FUDGING almost gone<br \/>\nGIRTH increased, HEAD in relative peace<br \/>\nITCHING for scotch, JERKING my crotch<br \/>\nKEEPING my cool, LAUGHING at drool<br \/>\nMINDING my guts, just a little bit NUTS<br \/>\nOPENING my eyes to the PRESIDENT\u2019S lies<br \/>\nQUIET sometimes, REALITY bell chimes<br \/>\nSTUPID am and does, TALK about what was<br \/>\nUSED to me by now, VARIETIES of chow<br \/>\nWEDDED twice, X\u2019s sometimes not so nice<br \/>\nYOUNG at heart I brag, my ZIG lost its ZAG<br \/>\nAt 71 that\u2019s me A to Z, Pepe Joe Connolly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AT 15 N LATITUDE, 145 E LONGITUDE<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m longing for Tinian while on the mainland<br \/>\nlaughing about \u2018Buenas zapatos\u2019 Hello shoes!<br \/>\nCovid 19 prevents traveling there as planned<br \/>\ngives me \u2018Missing Marpo Valley Boy Blues\u2019<br \/>\nmasarap smells of lechon babui on the spit<br \/>\nraindrops on banana leaves lull me to sleep<br \/>\ntears of pain remember typhoons that hit<br \/>\nstarlit nights and moonshine on ocean deep<br \/>\ndamage to homes and crops a crying shame<br \/>\nChamorro baila yan dandan bring great joy<br \/>\nKunados Eddie SN Borja yan Henry H. boy<br \/>\nsi yuus ma\u2019ase Tinian for all that you share<br \/>\nin my heart and soul I\u2019ll always be there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joey &#8216;Pepe Batbon&#8217; Connolly (Special to the Saipan Tribune)<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Joey \u201cPepe Batbon\u201d Connolly is a retired teacher and has been named a poet laureate of Tinian. He has taught English in CNMI public schools for the past 30 years. He has also taught in Alaska, New Orleans, and Las Vegas.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SONNET SELFIE ON TURNING 71 (I was born September 14, 1949 in Elmira, New York)&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":321680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[26,304,5148],"class_list":["post-330371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-cnmi","tag-las-vegas","tag-new-orleans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}